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PICTURES DRAWN 

BY ATOMIC BOMB 

SURVIVORS 

Edited by Japan 

Broadcasting 

Corporation 



'Unforgettable Fire is tremendously moving— more moving than any 
book of photographs of the horror could be, because what is registered 
is what has been burned into the minds of the survivors!' 
-JOHN HERSEY, author of Hiroshima 




Cr JL ^- 



JjHjSmeffaofe Tire 

PICTURES DRAWN BY ATOMIC BOMB SURVIVORS 



Edited by the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) 



Pantheon Books, New York 



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Copyright© 1977 by NHK 

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy- 
right Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon 
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultane- 
ously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. 
Originally published in Japanese asCoka oMita and in English trans- 
lation as Unforgctlabte Fire by Nippon Hoso Shuppan Kyokai, Tokyo. 

English translation by World Friendship Center in Hiroshima, 
supervised by Howard Schonberger and Leona Row. 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA 

Main entry under title: 
Unforgettable fire. 

Translation of Goka o rnita. 

Includes index. 

1. Hiroshima— Bombardment, 1945— Pictorial works. 
I . Nippon Hoso Kyokai. 

D767.25.H6G13 1981 940.54'26 80-8647 

isbn 0-394-51585-4 
isbn 0-394-74823-9 (pbk.) 

Manufactured in the United States of America 
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION 



PREFACE 



HIROSHIMA ON THAT DAY 



CONTENTS 



One THE BOMB AND I 



II 



Two BOMB FLASH! 8: 15 A.M. 



14 



Three WHAT I SAW ON THAT DAY 



20 



Four THE ENFLAMED CITY 



29 



Five WHERE IS MY CHILD? WHERE ISMYWIFE? 



51 



Six HANDS OF HELP 



lb 



Seven THE CITY OF THE DEAD 



96 



THE PICTURES ABOUT THE ATOMIC BOMB 



105 



INDEX 



III 



PREFACE 



The collection of pictures about the A-Bomb experience as drawn by 
the survivors was started by Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) Japan Broad- 
casting Corporation. The impetus for this project came when one survi- 
vor brought a hand-drawn picture to NHK's Hiroshima office The 
collection was .ntroduccd on television and exhibited at the Peace Culture 
Center in Hiroshima City August 1 to August 6, 1975. The exhibition hall 
was filled w.th excitement and deep emotion. A notebook in which vis- 
itors could wnte their impressions had been placed in the hall and was 
quickly filled. More impression notes continued to come in until more 
than ten notebooks were piled up. Some of these notes urged that the 
pictures be displayed not only in Japan but also in foreign countries in 
order that this cruel situation should be widely known 

Thirty years have passed since the A-Bomb was dropped. The mem- 
ory of how things were in Hiroshima at that time is being forgotten It is 
therefore necessary to appeal to the people of Japan and of the world that 
there be no "No More Hiroshima." The pictures in this book are only a 
small part of those which were sent in by the survivors. To publish a col- 
lection of these pictures as a book is very significant, since we are living in 
a world in which the diffusion of nuclear weapons is threatening the exis- 
tence ot all humanity. 

The pictures are a vivid documentary of the miserable scenes of that 
day although thirty year, have passed. The memories, etched in the 
minds of the survivors, are unforgettable ! Photographs cannot express the 
strong impressions which these pictures, drawn by the actual survivors 
portray. We hope that all of you can understand the heart-felt cries of the 
survivors as you look at the individual pictures of this collection. We 
thank those of you who participated in the movement "Let Us Leave for 
Posterity Pictures about the Atomic-Bomb Drawn by Citizens" and 
helped in so many different ways. 



June, 1975 



NHK Chugoku Area Chief 
Sqjl Matsumoto 



HIROSHIMA ON THAT DAY 



That morning 

On August 6, 1945, the morning started with a cloudless blue 
sky characteristic of the Inland Sea's summer. In March the big 
Tokyo air raid had killed 120,000 citizens. Many other cities in 
Japan were also violently bombed and burned by the American air 
attacks so that many non-combatants continued to be cruelly killed. 
In April American armed forces landed on Okinawa and the whole 
island became a battlefield. 90,000 Japanese soldiers were killed 
and 100,000 civilians died. Japanese people cried loudly that they 
would fight a decisive battle on the mainland. 

Hiroshima remained unharmed. A wild rumor spread that 
the Americans were not bombing in Hiroshima because it was a 
religious city with many Buddhist believers. Though not known 
at the time, in fact, the American military had ordered that Hiro- 
shima be spared from bombing raids in order to later calculate 
accurately the full effects of the A-Bomb. 

Hiroshima -developed on the delta at the mouth of the Ota 
River that ran from the Chugoku mountains into the Seto Inland 
Sea. In line with the Meiji government's policy to make the coun- 
try rich and the army strong, Hiroshima became a strategic center 
for the Japanese military. From Hiroshima's Ujina Port soldiers 
recruited from all over Japan were sent to battle on the Asian 
continent. As World War II continued, Hiroshima developed 
into a major military city. 

Before daybreak of August 6 an air raid alarm was given in 
Hiroshima. At 7 : 00 A.M. another air raid alarm was sounded. 
But at 7:31 A.M. the all clear was given. Soldiers at the anti- 
aircraft machine guns on the roofs of the military installations and 
munitions factories were released by an air defense order. 

Just before the fateful moment the seven rivers which ran 
through the city looked stagnant because of the high tide and re- 
flected the deep-blue of the summer- sky. Wearing work clothes 
and gaiters, with air defense hoods thrown back, people were run- 
ning on the big and small bridges throughout the city. One of these 
was the Aioi Bridge, an unusual T-type bridge. It was the target of 
the A-Bomb. The mobilized students, even school girls, were 
hurrying to the munitions factories by streetcar. A horse-drawn 
farmer's cart, taking nightsoil from the city to outlying farms, 




passed by at a leisurely pace with a clop-clop noise. Small clouds 
of dust rose here and there among the crowded, tile-roofed houses. 
These showed that work had begun on pulling down evacuated 
buildings to make compulsory firelanes. Members of the Women's 
Society of Labor Service, National Volunteers from the suburban 
districts, and junior high school students put their lunches in the 
shade of nearby trees before beginning a long day of sweaty, dusty 
work. 

In public offices and businesses workers had begun their jobs 
after their section chiefs had given their morning instructions. In 
public schools morning assemblies had begun because even during 
summer vacation, students who had not been evacuated had lessons 
there. Little children were busy playing in the streets. There 
were even foreigners in Hiroshima. Several thousand Koreans 
who had been taken from their country were working as forced 
laborers in an armament factory. There were some foreign students 
from Southeast Asian countries. And there were even Americans, 
POW Army pilots who had been shot down. Suddenly a bell rang 
in the broadcasting department of NHK. It was a warning given 
from the Army Headquarters of Chugoku District. The radio an- 
nouncer began to read the bulletin, "Chugoku District Army Infor- 
mation. Three enemy airplanes have been spotted over the Saijo 
area..." Just then there was a dreadful shaking and loud crash of 
iron and concrete. The announcer was thrown into the air. 



The Flash : 8 : 15 

The A-Bomb, which was nicknamed "Little Boy", was dropped 
from the B-29, Enola Gay. It exploded 570 meters above the 
ground with a light blue flash. The diameter of the fireball was 
100 meters and the temperature at its' center was 300,000° C. 
Soon after the explosion black and white smoke covered the whole 
city and rose thousands of meters high. The pressure of the blast 
directly under the center of the explosion was from 4.5 to 6.7 tons 
per square meter. Wooden houses within a radius of two kilo- 
meters of the hypocenter collapsed and completely burned from the 
wind and heat. The fires continued for two days. Some people 
who were near the center of the explosion literally evaporated and 
only their shadows remained ; others were turned to charred 




corpses. Those who survived were badly burned. Usually their 
clothes were scorched and burned so they were practically naked. 
Their skin peeled off and hung down. They rushed to nearby fire 
prevention water boxes and river banks seeking water. Friends 
and relatives trapped under collapsed houses were crying for help. 
But flames surrounded them so closely that they were about to burn. 
Later large black drops of rain poured down. It was a deadly 
rain which contained mud, ash, and other radioactive fallout. 
Through burning flames and pouring black rain there was an end- 
less line of injured people heading for the outskirts of the city. The 
burns on their hands made the skin hang down. Their hands 
looked like those of ghosts. 

"Give me water." 

The security functions of the army, police, prefecture, and city 
agencies practically ceased. Under such circumstances medical 
treatment was started by doctors and nurses who were injured 
themselves. Damage to nearby army posts was rather slight and 
so soldiers from them first began the relief job. Hospitals soon 
became full, so public schools around the city were used as first-aid 
stations. They were also crowded by the rush of wounded persons. 
Countless dead bodies and seriously wounded people, who barely 
breathed, were left on the road or the river-banks of the city. 
Medical supplies were used up immediately because of the unim- 
aginable number of wounded persons. The untreated people took 
their last breath moaning, "Give me water." What is now called 
radiation sickness soon appeared. People began suffering from 
diarrhea as if they had dysentery, losing clumps of their hair, and 
developing purple colored spots on their skin which made them look 
like a map. Such people soon died, their bodies full of big maggots 
they were too weak to remove. 

Those who were looking for their relatives walked around in 
the still smoldering city with the rescue parties. What they saw 
were dead bodies piled up on the ground and filling up the rivers. 
Figures of mothers who died protecting their own children were 



8 



especially heartbreaking. People were deeply scarred by the in- 
discriminate cruelty of the new styled bomb and the dreadfuiness 
oT war itself. 

Among those who entered the city later, there were a large 
number of people who were affected by lingering radioactivity, and 
died. Cremation of dead bodies continued for many days through- 
out the city. On top of some wood dead bodies were piled up, oil 
poured on them, and a fire was lit. The smell of dead bodies and 
the wail of sutra-chanting spread over the vast scorched desolation. 

And on August 9, the second A-Bomb was dropped on Naga- 
saki. 



Appeal for Peace 

Although many believed Hiroshima would be barren for 
seventy years, amidst the ruins canna lilies bloomed and grass 
flourished from the effects of radioactivity. On the first anniver- 
sary of the A-Bomb a "Peace Revival Festival" was organized by 
citizen groups in the city where only shacks stood. Although under 
the American occupation speeches and gatherings were strictly 
controlled, the festival was attended by thousands holding flags 
draped in black and placards saying "World Peace from Hiro- 
shima". The following year, August 6, 1947, Mayor of Hiroshima, 
Mr. Hamai, read the first "Peace Declaration" at the renamed 
"Peace Festival". He declared : "Those who have experienced 
and fully realized the anguish and sin of war would denounce war 
absolutely as the ultimate agony, and wish for peace most passion- 
ately." 

Despite such pleas for peace, the Soviet Union proclaimed its 
possession of the A-Bomb in September 1949 ; in January 1950, the 
President of the United States announced that he had ordered the 
start of H-Bomb production. Five months later, the Korean War 
broke out. England also began atomic development. On March 
1, 1954, a tuna fishing boat from Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Fifth 
Lucky Dragon, while operating near Bikini Atoll in the South 
Pacific, was showered with radioactive fallout from an H-Bomb 
test conducted by the United States. The chief radio operator of 
the boat, Mr. Aikichi Kuboyama, died in the fall of that year from 
the radiation effects of this weapon, one 600 times more powerful 
than the A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 

The Yaizu City Council passed a resolution at the end of 
March, 1954, against nuclear weapons and this appeal met with 
an immediate response from many other local governments in 
Japan. Both Houses of the Diet passed resolutions in April to ban 
the use of atomic weapons. At the same time, a movement to 
circulate a petition calling for a ban on nuclear weapons arose 
among the women of Hiroshima and of Suginami Ward of Tokyo. 
This non-partisan movement became part of a strong current which 
spread all over the nation. Twenty million signatures were col- 
lected and Gensuikyo, the Japan Council Against A- and H-Bombs, 



was established. 

When Gensuikyo divided into factions resulting from conflicts 
over the U. S.-Japan Security Treaty and the resumption of nu- 
clear testing by the Soviet Union, many citizens of Hiroshima were 
discouraged and silent. But in August, 1966, their hopes were 
rekindled by an NHK-Hiroshima television program which at- 
tempted to answer many simple questions about the A-Bomb explo- 
sion. How many people were in the hypocenter area at the time of 
the explosion ? Where were they from ? What kind of work did 
they do ? What kind of buildings were there ? Growing out of 
this program, television journalists, scientists at the Research Insti- 
tute for Nuclear Medicine and Biology of Hiroshima University, 
and a large number of ordinary citizens, jftincd in a movement to 
recover information about and to reproduce on a scale model the 
hypocenter area. The movement would also make an appeal for 
peace based on the survivors' experiences of the first A-Bomb explo- 
sion in history. The City of Hiroshima took over this movement 
and prepared a report to the United Nations as part of the activities 
of the 30th anniversary year. Even after careful investigation, the 
estimate of 240,000 casualties from the A-Bomb is not considered 
reliable. 

Last year the movement of "Pictures about the A-Bomb Drawn 
bv Hiroshima Citizens" was triggered by a single drawing brought 
to NHK-Hiroshima and the enthusiasm of Hiroshima's people. 
This is a new civic movement not seen since the movement to repli- 
cate the hypocenter area. (Sources : "A-Bomb Record of Hiro- 
shima" by Hiroshima City ; "History of Hiroshima Prefecture- A- 
Bomb Materials Volume" by Hiroshima Prefecture ; "The A-Bomb 
Hypocenter" by Dr. Kiyoshi Shirnizu ; a large number of drawings 
contributed by the citizens.) 




10 



One THE BOMB AND I 



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Goto Kiyoyoshi age SO (283) 



This is a picture from Mt. Futaba which 
overlooks Hiroshima city. Standing on the 
hill I could see the shrine at its foot engulfed in 
flames and Shukkeien Garden burning between 
two branches of the Ota River. The fire ex- 
tended to the Hiroshima Castle. Above the 
city was a mushroom cloud from the Atomic 
Bomb. 



11 



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At Yokogawa Station August 6, 1945, 8:15 
A.M. 

I got on a streetcar of the Kabe line about 
8 : 10 A.M. The door was open and I was 
standing there. As I heard the starting bell 
ring, I saw a silver flash and heard an explo- 
sion over the platform on which I had just 
walked. Next moment everything went dark. 

Instinctively I jumped down to the track 
and braced myself against it. Putting a hand- 
kerchief into my mouth, I covered my eyes 
and cars with my hands. 



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Around Yokogawa Station about 8 : 30 A.M. 

I had worn a white blouse with a blue 
striped pattern that day. The back fell apart 
later when I washed it. 

A civilian guard told us, "Please go to the 
school in Misasa." 

I heard a woman saying in a small voice, 
"Please help me." Four or five people got 
together immediately to help her. But we 
couldn't move the concrete block off her no 
matter how we tried. Saying, "Forgive us", 
the others left her as she was and went away. 
I prayed for her and then also left. 



12 






About 8 : 20 A.M. at Yokogawa Station 

I do not know when they had gathered, 
but a crowd of people were reeling and collid- 
ing with each other. Soon the sun appeared 
blood-red in the dark sky. When it became 
a little lighter around me I saw a group of 15 
or 16 adults. "Where had the children gone ?" 
I wondered. Black smoke was rising here and 
there and Nakahiro-cho where my parents 
lived was already in flame. Apologizing in my 
heart to my parents I decided to seek shelter. 






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Near Yokogawa Station about 8 : 50 A.M. 

A lady about 40 years old was bleeding 
from her eyes. 

It was getting light and I met a lady whose 
eyes were bloodshot. The blood was oozing 
down from the corners of the eyes along both 
sides of her nose. 

Unconsciously I wiped my face with my 
hands and I was surprised to see that there 
was blood on them. I got my mirror out of 
my pocket and looked into it. I found only 
a small cut on my eyebrow. 

I took my khaki air-raid dress out of my 
bag and put it on, tied my hair with a handker- 
chief, dressed myself neatly and started walking. 





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Tomoko Konishi age 58 (431-438) 



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The river bank from Misasa to Mitaki 

A girl was standing in the middle of the 
road staring vacantly. Strange to say, her 
clothes were not tattered. She was eight years 
old. The wound on her head looked like a 
cracked pomegranate. Silently I carried her 
on my back and headed in the direction of the 
Ota River. 

Then I heard a girl's voice clearly from 
behind a tree. "Help me, please." Her back 
was completely burned and the skin peeled off 
and was hanging down from her hips. 



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Shinjo near Gion Bridge 

* A straw-thatched cottage among bamboo 
bushes was burning. Three persons were 
taking furniture out. The passers-by did not 
help them. They glanced at them and silently 
continued on their way. A nurse was stand- 
ing near the soldiers in white as if she was 
watching over them. The soldiers did not 
appear wounded to me. What I remember is 
just the pale face and the wide-opened eyes of 
one soldier lying there. 



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At the bank of the Nagatsuka around 9 : 40 
A.M. 

The refugees walked in procession along 
the bank of the river toward Gion. There was 
nobody who was wearing good clothes or was 
without wounds except me. Everyone was in 
rags and hurt. 1 walked feeling guilty beca- 
use only I still had nice clothes and was not 
wounded. 

A woman was walking, crying, "Can any- 
one help me ?" The flesh of her side was 
scooped out and bleeding profusely and I could 
see her ribs. A man began to walk beside her, 
saying, "Everyone has the same pain as you 
have. Endure it and we will seek a shelter". 



Higashi Yamamoto, Asa County 
My mother, 63 years old 

While lying on a potato farm in Mitaki 
my mother had asked the rescue party from her 
village for help and they brought her home. 

Her face was larger than usual, her lips 
were badly swollen, and her eyes remained 
closed. The skin of both her hands was hanging 
loose as if it were rubber gloves. The upper 
part of her body was badly burned. 

My mother passed away on August 9 
before seeing the war end. My father who was 
in Daiku-cho at the time of the explosion, just 
as my mother was, disappeared and we have 
never even found his body. 

13 



Two BOMB FLASH! 8:15 AM. 




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Tsutomu Ojiri age 36 (867) 



(Top row of circles represents the sun compared 
to growing size of fireball in bottom row.) 

I saw the explosion in Hatsukaichi about 
10 miles away when I was five years old. This 
is the way I remembered the explosion in the 
five seconds before the sound reached me. 
(from right to left) One second before, two 
seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five sec- 
onds. I imagine others saw the same scene 
from Mizujiri near the Inland Sea at Saka- 
machi. 



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Kiyoshi Input age 51 (532) 



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How many people saw the explosion at. 
that terrible instant ! I saw the explosion 
about 20 kilometers away at the red circle on 
the picture. The other spot on the picture 
marks the barracks for the Navy at the Otake 
evacuation center. 



75 









Kiyoshi Innue age 51 {533-535) 



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Sumako Yamada age 54 (439-4 il) 






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Koi Nakamachi 

At 8:15 A.M. on August 6 everything 
was instantly covered with pink and light blue 
rays. There was a strange whooshing sound 
and then black rain came down. 



August 6 around 8 : 20 A.M. 

I had a view of Hijiyama from Hijiyama 
Elementary School. Going out of an air-raid I 
shelter I could see the mushroom cloud beyond I 
the mountain. The top was narrower than! 
below but it was getting bigger as I watched. | 
I wondered what the red smoke was. 



18 



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Takehika Sakai age 53 (294-295) 



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The disaster in the old Fukuya Depart- ■ 
merit Store which I saw from the fourth floor oil 
new Fukuya store in Hacchobori about vwcn-E 
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Setsuko Yamamoto age 46 (414) 



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(415) 



A desperate escape from the streetcar at 
Hakushima line just after the A-Romb explo- 
sion. 



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(caption at bottom of page for lower middle 
picture) 

What I still cannot forget is that my scis- 
sors and my lunch box were both thrown onto 
the floor from my emergency bag when I fell 
down on the floor. Although they were within 
my reach, I escaped leaving them behind. I 
have always regretted not bringing them. 
Why didn't I stretch out my hands to take 
them ? I did not have enough presence of 
mind and I am still heartsick. That pair of 
scissors sent by my friend in Hawaii was a 
good remembrance to me. It was sharp, 
shiny, and never rusted. I have many good 
memories of my lunch box, too. 



(on picture, left side) 

I smiled and tasted the black rain on my 
hand. Parents were looking for their children 
and children were crying for their parents. 
Houses along the street were burning, I went 
down to the river from the back-gate and 
washed my hands and feet, and dampened my 
clothes for the next air-raid. In the excitement 
I urinated in my clothes and then washed them. 
There were countless people on the riverbank. 



24 



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(top middle picture) 

August 6 a few minutes after 8 ; 00 A.M. 
(Black ink is used to draw the scene before the 
A-Bomb ; red ink immediately after the A- 
Bomb exploded.) 

The vice-principal who came into the 
classroom immediately after the A-Bomb had 
lost his glasses, his clothes were torn off, and 
his arms, bloody and skinned, hung down by 
his side. His face was burned black. I met 



him at the doorway. 

I sighed with relief and sat down at a desk 
when the air-raid alarm, which was given 
during the night, was called off. Suddenly 
there was an unusual blue light. It was hot 
and painful. Numerous pieces of glass scat- 
tered and attacked me on my head, face, and 
back. When I stood up and took a few steps 
toward the entrance, 1 was pushed from behind 
by a strong force and fell down by the doorway. 



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Torako Hitonaka age 63 (183) 



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Some burned work-clothes. 
People crying for help with their heads, 
shoulders, or the soles of their feet injured 
by fragments of broken window glass. 
Glass fragments were scattered every- 
where. 

She was crying, saying "Aigo ! Aigo !" 
(a Korean expression of sorrow) 
A burning pine tree. 
A naked woman. 

Naked girls crying "Stupid America !" 
I was crouching in a puddle for fear of 
being shot by a machine gun. My 
breasts were torn. 

Burned down electric power lines. 
A telephone pole had burned and fallen 
down. 

A field of watermelons. 
A dead horse. 

What with dead cats, pigs, and people, 
it was just a hell on earth. 
9 : 30 A.M. August 6, 1945 I was on the 
way from Koi station to Tokaichi. 
These are tomatoes, pumpkins, water- 
melons, eggplants, etc. which were scat- 
tered on the field or roads in Fukushirna- 
cho because of the blast. 



27 







Near Takanobashi a fire had already 
broken out around 8 : 25 A.M. A woman's cry 
for help saddened me as I could not help her. 



Kanichi Ito age 72 (350) 



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Please help this child ! 
Someone, please help this child. 
Please help ! 
Someone, please. 






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Hat.mji Takeuchi age 60 (896) 



28 



Four THE ENFLAMED CITY 




The girl was injured on the chest and 
covered with blood. She had no shoes on her 
feet. Still able to think clearly she avoided 
the many splintered things on the road and 
trudged towards her home where her family 
was waiting for her. 

Passing through Matoba section, the girl 
and I came to the area called Kojin-machi 
Akebono-cho. On both sides of the road there 
were temples. Everywhere was a sea of fire. 
No road was open for us anymore except for 
a narrow path and that was barely passable. 
The: clothes which we earlier had dipped in 
water had already dried so much that they were 
almost at the point of burning. There was 
no time to lose. We dipped our clothes in the 



water that was stored in an air-raid shelter, and 
dashed through the fires desperately. 

"Awfully hot ! Is this the end of my 
life ?...Oh God [...Help me!" I murmured 
and prayed. 

When we managed to come to a safer 
place, we looked back at the path we had 
dashed through. It was the most frightful 
scene I had ever , witnessed in my life. Yet 
even at this safer place, I found many dead 
bodies lying in the air-raid shelter, under fallen 
trees, and everywhere. 

When we finally arrived at the girl's home 
at Nakayama section, the darkness of the sum- 
mer's night was already falling upon us. 



29 




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Magoichi Jitsukuni age 69 {93) 



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njrjjjpiinjmi_ TELL tnnu l ! \R 



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About 3 : 00 P.M. August 6 

Under Hijiyama suspension bridge 

In reality several hundred people, not all 

drawn ; were fleeing. 

Next day these people were found dead. 

30 



Masaka Yamamura age 67 {629) 



fi£_ 



Atsuko Tomita age 45 (iff 




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Kiihie Masukawa died in 1975 "(901) . 






Members of the neighborhood council 
from Yamane section of Hiroshima were work- 
ing on the west approach to the Tsurumi Bridge 
for the Volunteer Corps on that day. When 
the A-Bomb exploded, they were blown by the 
blast into the river and carried by the ebbing 
tide to the east approach of the Hijiyama 
Bridge some 1200 feet away. There were 
cries of "Please help, teacher" "To the river", 
and "God help me". 



32 



Tomoe Harada age 52 {41m 






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Yoshimi Ikeda age 51 (831) 



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1 . The skin of her hands was burned, swol- 
len, and hanging down. 

2. A piece of wood stuck out of her right 
eye and she seemed to be very much in 
pain. She walked almost unconsciously. 

3. I gave her a cucumber which she held 
with her left hand. 

4. Give me water. 

5. Please give me water. 

6. Please give me water. 

7. Mommy. 

8. (Title of picture) On the bank of the Koi 
River. 



- ' 



JS* ■ -: 



34 




Ayako Uesugi age 77 (516) 



At about 1 1 : 00 A.M. on August 6, 1945 
on the road along the back of my house in 
Funairi-Kawaguchi-cho, there were a lot of 
people that looked like this. 
"Help me ! I can't see anything." 
"Water, water ! Give me some water !" 
" Water ! I can't see anything." 



35 




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Foot of Mt. Hiji 
Streetcar road 
Help ! Mommy ! 






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Mt. Hiji Bridge 

People who jumped into 
the river and died. 

corpse 



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Hirano-maclii 
neighborhood 



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Tsurumi-machi 

neighborhood 
The man under 
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36 



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The A-Bomb exploded when I 
was near Takara-machi. 



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Taisho market 
neighborhood 




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A person who was running away 
from Fujimicho toward Mt. Hiji, 

Pieces of window glass all over 
his face 

Big face 



Takara-machi 



Kimiyo Higaki age 76 {270) 



37 



L #L--,J ^ J . ... .' Ma 4 > 




Yokogawa Bridge above Tenma River, August 
6, 1945, 8 : 30 A.M. 

People crying and moaning were running to- 
wards the city. I did not know why. 
Steam engines were burning at Yokogawa Sta- 
tion. 

Tail of cow tied to wire. 
Skin of girl's hip was hanging down. 
"My baby is dead, isn't she ?" 







Sawami Katagiri age 76 {284) 



At the Aioi Bridge 

On August 9, 1945, I walked around the 
city looking for my husband. 'There were 
many burned persons at each evacuation 
center. Their injuries were quite extraordi- 
nary. I was walking among many dead peo- 
ple. I was too shocked to feel loneliness for my 
husband. It was like hell. The sight of a 
living horse burning was very striking. This 
picture shows only a part of Hiroshima. The 
whole city was just like this at that time. 



39 



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Kishiro Nagara age 72 (39) 



They headed for Koi Elementary School. 
She could not see through the black rain. 
"Don't die, my brother !" 



(title of picture) The memories of the A- 
Borrib at that time, Kishiro Nagara, 2-7-4 
Koi-kami, Hiroshima city. 




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About 9 : 00 A.M., August 6, 1945 in the neigh- 
borhood of the Shinjo Bridge about 1 kilo- 
meter from Hiroshima City. 

Voluntary labor corps suffering from 
deadly burns were returning home ; others were 
escaping in a hurry to the outskirts of the 
city ; many were seeking water on the other 
side of the river ; some were lying under the 
bamboo thicket, completely exhausted from 
walking. 



Masao Kobayashi age 77 (549) 



40 



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A group of junior high school girls seeking 

shelter were all naked. 

Teacher ! Teacher ! Teacher ! 

A sense of responsibility. 






A junior high school student whose hair 
had fallen out except where he had worn 
a cap. 

They were tired out when they were 
caught in the rain. 



I am 78 years old. I was living at Midori- 
machi on the day of the A-Bomb blast. Around 
9 : 00 A.M. that morning, when I looked out 
of my window, I saw several women coming 
along the street one after another toward the 
Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital. I realized for 
the first time, as it is sometimes said, that when 
people are very much frightened hair really 
does stand up on end. The women's hair was, 
in fact, standing straight up and the skin of 
their arms was peeled off. I supposed they 
were around 30 years old. 



Asa Skigemori age 81 (234) 




41 



Sar,*,6 



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Kazuo Mahumuro died in 1977 (919) 



On the stairs in front of the statue of Fleet 
Admiral Kato in Hijiyama Park 

Although we were lying side by side we 
did not recognize each other. He heard my 
voice and said, "Are you Mr. Matsumuro ?" 
It was Mr. Yoshimoto. His face was dark and 
swollen. He seemed unable to open his eyes 
or mouth. The left side of his face, neck, and 
hands, were burned. Soon we were separated. 

I was bleeding from my ears, nose, and 
mouth and was wounded from being crushed. 
I learned later that the twelfth backbone and 
the first lumbar vertebra were fractured. I 
could hardly move. 



42 



■■■ 










s * « ? 



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a. 





(J Mi "**,;?■"'>' 







1. About 8 : 15 A.M. August 6, 1945 

As I looked up at the sky from the back- 
yard of my house, I heard the faint buzzing of 
a B-29 but the plane was not visible. A few 
minutes later, the all clear was sounded. The 
sun was glaring in the cloudless summer sky. 
I looked up and suddenly saw a strange thing. 
There was a fire ball like a baseball growing 
larger becoming the size of a volleyball. And 
then something fell on my head. I realized 
it was something like a bomb showering my 
body. At that time I was 14 years old. 



2. How many seconds or minutes had passed 
I could not tell but regaining consciousness I 
found myself lying on the ground covered with 
pieces of wood. When I stood up in a frantic 
effort to look around there was darkness. Ter- 
ribly frightened I thought I was alone in a 
world of death and groped for any light. My 
fear was so great I did not think anyone would 
truly understand. When 1 came to my senses 
I found my clothes in shreds and I was without 
my "gcta" (wooden sandals). 

3. Suddenly I wondered what had happened 
to my mother and sister. My mother was then 
45 and my sister 5 years old. When the dark- 
ness began to fade I found that there was 
nothing around me. My house, the nextdoor 
neighbor's house, and the next had all van- 
ished. I was standing amid the ruins of my 
house. No one was around, It was quiet, 
very quiet, an eerie moment. I discovered 
my mother in a water tank. She had fainted. 
Crying out, "Mamma, Mamma", I shook her 
to bring her back to her senses. After coming 
to my mother began to shout madly' for my 
sister, ''Elko, Eiko !" 



43 






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4. I wonder how much time had passed 
when there were cries of searches. Children 
were calling their parent's names, and parents 
were calling the names of their children. We 
were calling desperately for my sister and lis- 
tening for her voice and looking to see her. 
Suddenly Mother cried, "Oh, Eiko !" Four 
or five meters away my sister's head was stick- 
ing out and was calling my mother, "Oka- 
chan ! I'm here !" "Haruko, Eiko is over 
there !" my mother shouted to me, We ran 
to save my sister. She was crushed under 
the collapsed house and only her head could be 
seen. "How terrible ! Be patient ! We'll 
get you out now." Mother and I worked des- 
perately to remove the plaster and pillars and 
pulled her out with great effort. Her body 
had turned purple from the bruises and her 
arm was so badly wounded that we could have 
placed two fingers in the wound. Strange to 
say, my mother was thankfully not hurt. 

I carried my sister on my back while 
mother was working very hard to remove 
more plaster and pillars to help those who were 
crushed under the broken houses. We saw 
fires start here and there like a devil's hand. 



5. We three ran away, heading for Mt. 
Eba. A crowd of people were running along 
the street car track. All were wounded. 
There was a man with his skin trailing ; an- 
other man was breathing faintly, all blood- 
stained ; a third man had blood spurting out 
Of his head. It was just like hell ! 

About that time the left side of my face 
became extraordinarily hot. The pain grew 
worse and worse. As I walked toward Mt. 
Eba I would stop and wash it with muddy 
water. It was almost evening when we ap- 
proached Mt. Eba. When we arrived I felt 
so bad I could not stand, but I felt uneasy 
sitting in a field of lotus. Then lukewarm 
rain fell. I did not even have enough energy 
to stand or find shelter and finally I tumbled 
over. Night came and I could hear many 
voices crying and groaning with pain and beg- 
ging for water. Somone cried, "Damn it ! 
War tortures so many people who are inno- 
cent !" Another said, "Ouch ! Give me 
water." This person was so burned that we 
couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. 

The sky was red with flames. It was 
burning as if scorching heaven. 



44 



ftyft && 




Haruko Ogasawam age 45 {95, 96, 929, 97, 98) 



Funairi-nakamachi 

1.2 kilometers from the center of the ex- 
plosion a crowd of the wounded .were running 
away. Some of them had their skin trailing 
them. 

Blood was spurting out of the top of his head, 
(left) 

Clothes torn to shreds, (middle left) 
His clothes were torn from his back and his 
skin was trailing, (bottom left) 
Hair seemed to be cut. (right) 
Skin was hanging from his arm and trailing 
his body, (middle right) 



45 




Mikio Inoue age 72 {36) 



We were on our way home. We were 
walking along the streetcar line at the foot of 
Hijiyama. Wherever we went we saw dead 
horses and bodies lying here and there. The 
remaining fires were giving off a lot of smoke. 
Not a soul was in sight. It was when I crossed 
Miyuki Bridge that I saw Professor Takenaka 
standing at the foot of the bridge. He was 
almost naked, wearing nothing but shorts, and 
he had a rice ball in his right hand. Beyond 
the streetcar line, the northern area was covered 
by red fire burning against the sky. Far away 
from the line, Ote-machi was also a sea of fire. 



That day Professor Takenaka had not 
gone to Hiroshima University and the A- Bomb 
exploded when he was at home. He tried to 
rescue his wife who was trapped under a roof- 
beam but all his efforts were in vain. The 
fire was threatening him also. His wife plead- 
ed, "Run away, dear !" He was forced to 
desert his wife and escape from the fire. He 
was now at the foot of Miyuki Bridge. 

But I wonder how he came to hold that 
rice ball in his hand ? His naked figure, 
standing there before the flames with that rice 
ball looked to me as a symbol of the modest 
hope of human beings. 



46 




47 



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Kinzo Nishida age 82 (654) 



The day the A-Bomb was dropped 

It was about 9 : 30 A.M., August 6, 1945. 
While taking my severely wounded wife out to 
the riverbank by the side of the hill of Nakahiro- 
machi, I was horrified, indeed, at the sight of 
a stark naked man standing in the rain with 
his eyeball in his palm. He looked to be in 
great pain but there was nothing that I could 
do for him. 

I wonder what became of him. Even 
today, I vividly remember the sight. It was 
simply miserable. 



48 






n. 



■ 



JS:* JJ 







Tcrumi Nuhida age 65 (774) 



August 6, 1945, 9 : 30 A.M. 

A woman with her jaw missing and her 
tongue hanging out of her mouth was wander- 
ing around the area of Shinsho-machi in the 
heavy, black rain. She was heading towards 
the north crying for help. I wonder if she 
survived. 



49 




Shigematsu Kajiyama died in 1974 {51) 



50 



Five WHERE IS MY CHILD? 
WHERE IS MY WIFE? 










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Suemi Kajiya age 69 (256) 






The mother's entire back was burned but 
her front was not injured. Her breasts, es- 
pecially, appeared normal so that her baby was 
clinging to them to suckle. The baby was 
strong and moved from his mother's breasts 
to the ground and back again. I guessed that 
she had lain face down with her baby under 



her body because her front side and her baby 
remained unburned. She was unconscious. 
I was afraid she would die soon and the baby's 
milk would be stopped. If the baby had been 
saved, and brought up he would be 30 or 31 
now. This is what I saw 3 : 30 P.M., August 
7. 



51 



II ^ 



About 8 : 00 A.M., August 7, on the street 
in front of the former Hiroshima Broadcasting 
Station 

Since I was at school in Ujina I had been 
exposed to radiation separately from rny par- 
ents. The next morning at 7 : 30 I started 
from school toward the ruins of my house in 
Nobori-cho. I passed by Hijiyama. There 
were few people to be seen in the scorched field. 
I saw for the first time a pile of burned bodies 
in a water tank by the entrance to the broad- 
casting station. Then 1 was suddenly fright- 
ened by a terrible sight on the street 40 to 50 
meters from Shukkeien Garden. There was 
a charred body of a woman standing frozen in 
a running posture with one leg lifted and her 
baby tightly clutched in her arms, Who on 
earth could she be ? This cruel sight still 
vividly remains in my mind. 



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Yamagata 


age 


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(495) 



53 




Name unknown (848) 



Walking around the back gate of Shuk- 
keien Garden of Hakushima-cho, I saw an in- 
fant boy leaning against the gate and heard 
him crying. When T approached and then 
touched him, I found that he was dead. To 
think that he might have been my son made 
ray heart ache. 



P 



54 



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iCi>«fo Nishioki age 39 (686) 



Around noon of August 6, 1945 

This is the scene of the courtyard of the 
present Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital for- 
merly the Kyosai Hospital. The girl sitting 
in the center is me. I was gazing at my 
mother and younger brother who were both 
totally burned. My brother died around noon 
before my eyes. A baby in this picture was 
clinging to his dead mother. He probably 
died the next day as he was lying rather still 
beside his mother. The young boy in front of 
the baby died after saying to me, "I am from 
Hiroshima First Middle School. Please hand 
this lunch to my mother." He entrusted me 
with his Hinomaru Bcnto, a lunch of rice and 
plum. 



55 





August 10, 1945 

At Honkawa Elementary School 

Two little girls about 3 and 5 
years old were cooling their seriously 
injured mother with paper fans. 



Hiroshi Shinda age 65 (J 93) 



* 56 



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Yoshitada Mitsuta age 73 (178) 



About 10 : 00 A.M., August 7, at the yard 
of the school dormitory of Shinshu Buddhist 
sect in Minami Kannon-machi three people 
who looked like refugees were found dead as 
shown in this picture. 

A woman who seemed to be the mother 
of a baby was dead. Her arms were curved as 
if still holding her baby. Her body was swol- 
len very round. Her face, looking upward, 
had the expression of someone who was having 
difficulty in breathing. 



58 



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t/n/»H Moloyama age 76 (380) 



Miserable, so miserable ! 
countless silent forms of corpses 
wringing and shaking our hearts 

A dead horse 

abdomen swollen and torn, 
entrails bleeding and forming 
a pool of blood around : 



The last moment of a mother and a child, 

too horrible to cast a look ; 

Their bloody faces, 

swollen and burnt, 

crushed in water bucket, 

exhibits a horror in blue and black : 

Corpses of girls, 

collected on the river bank, 

where they used to wander ; 

these students of the volunteer corps, 

now are gone, 

without seeing their days. 



59 



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5/K^eA-o Motooka age 64 (301) 



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Before noon August 8, 1 945, Kannon 
Town, I returned to the ruins after the fire. 
My house was the second one on the left. 

An old neighbor lady with palsy had been 
bedridden and burned to death. Only the 
still smoldering flesh of her abdomen remained. 



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Another woman who had lied with her 
baby returned home to search for her older 
son she had been forced to leave behind. 
By removing roof tiles, she found the bones 
of her boy at the bottom of the ruin. 



The Kannon Bridge sank in the middle. 

(upper) 

A person dipped his face into a water 

tank, (upper middle) 

At the foot of the bridge, a dead mother is 

leaning on a pillar, (right side) 

61 




Name unknown, housewife, (932) 



At Meiji Bridge 

A mother, driven half-mad while looking 
for her child, was calling his name. At last 
she found him. His head looked like a boiled 
octopus. His eyes were half-closed, and his 
mouth was white, pursed, and swollen. 



62 



August 10 

At the stone steps of a collapsed house 
along the riverside near the Dobashi area lay 
this child. Perhaps he had been playing on 
the stone steps. He must have been three or 
four years old. 

Eyeballs popped out about 3 centimeters. 
His body was swollen and had turned a 
brown color. His navel protruded. 



' ^ -e •■■ L. i > 0) %^ »\ 



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47 (23) 



August 6, after 5 : 00 P.M. 

In front of the broadcasting station in 
Nagarekawa I saw a strange thing. There was 
no doubt that it was a mother and a child 
burned black. 




63 







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Hisashi Niwa age 93 {197) 



August 7, 1945 about 8 : 00 A.M. 
Aioi Bridge 

It was too horrifying to look into the river. 
I prayed for these dead people. 
The area was deserted. 

This horse's intestines were laying on the 
ground, clear and puffy, 3 centimeters in dia- 
meter by about 2 meters in length. 
Freight from horse carts was scattered over the 
road. 

Streetcar tracks 
Streetcars turned over. 

My fifth son was in the army hospital and at 
this spot (•) I gave up looking for him. 
Flattened concrete bridge railing 



64 



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Kinu Kusata age 73 (599) 



Honkawa Elementary School 



Here, three foreigners were dead. 



Aioi Bridge 

Location from which Kinu Kusata 
viewed this scene. 



65 







Kazukiro Ishizu age 68 (373) 



Kaitaichi area 

"Oh Praise to Great Buddha" 

A woman cycling into Hiroshima City. 
She was going to rescue her child who was in 
the Volunteer Corps. 



66 



1 













JVanw unknown (576) 



My sister expires, August 8 

1. I, the sixth grader of primary school 

2. Mom 

3. I : "Never die, never !" Sis. : "You should 
be the last to die !" 

4. The last drip of water given by a injector 

5. Pillow made up of rags 

6. Torn-off curtain 

The place : Motohigashi Police Station in 

Ginzan-machi 

Died of total burn 



67 




u 

Masalo Une age SO {685) 



A first year junior high school student 
asked me to give him some water. I heard 
that if people who had been exposed to the A- 
Bomb drank water, they would die. So, I 
would not give him water. 

The next day, when I passed by the place, 
he was lying on the ground dead. I wished 
then that I had let him drink some water, even 
if he would have died sooner. I clasped my 
hands and chanted a prayer to Amitaba. I 
started to worry even more about my own 
child, for whom I was looking. He might have 
died in such a miserable condition or be suffer- 



ing pain. I left there wiping away the tears 
which welled up in my eyes. 

I heard in the evening that my child had 
been calling "Daddy", "Mommy" and that he 
had taken his last breath alone without seeing 
us. That was the short life of a thirteen-year- 
old ! 

It is twenty-nine years since my son died, 
and his memory, and the miserable image of 
the junior high school boy asking for water 
always haunts me. 

Oh, the hateful A-Bomb ! 






68 



-> 




Kazuo Akiyama age 66 {518} 



Most of the A-Bomb survivors were burned 
all over their bodies. They were not only 
naked, but also their skin came off. Suffering 
from the severe pain of the burns, they were 
wandering around looking for their parents, 
husbands, wives, and children in the city of 
Hiroshima which had been reduced to ashes. 

Near Kamiyacho in Hiroshima 



69 






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;~ 



Kazua Matmmnro died in 1977 (922) 



August 7, 1945, 8:00 A.M., Takeya section 
8 kilometers from the hypocenter. In search 
of a place to cremate her dead child. 

The burned face of the child on her back 
was infested with maggots. I guess she was 
thinking of putting her child's bones in a 
battle helmet she had picked up. I feared she 
would have to go far to find burnable material 
to cremate her child. 

70 




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Sadako Kimura age 77 {176) 



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Kigfi lekida age 64 [398) 




Tadao Inoue age fS7 (642) 



74 




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Kikuno Segawa age 69 {593) 






I was walking along the Hijiyama Bridge 
about 3 : 00 P.M. on August 7. A woman, 
who looked like an expectant mother, was 
dead. At her side, a girl of about three years 
of age brought some water in an empty can she 
had found. She was trying to let her mother 



drink from it. 

As soon as I saw this miserable scene with' 
the pitiful child, I embraced the girl close to 
me and cried with her, telling her that her 
mother was dead. 






75 



Six HANDS OF HELP 



Iwao Fukui age 61 (702) 



X 



76 








When the A-Bomb was dropped I was an 
army ambulance sergeant of Akatsuki 4039 
Corps stationed at Ninoshima Island. I saw 
this scene when our rescue squad was departing 
for Hiroshima from Ninoshima Pier, About 
half an hour after the A-Bomb dropped small 
ships and barges filled with wounded began 
arriving at Ninoshima. Some people were 
towed in the water by rope lashed to their 



bodies and to the stern of the boats. Of course, 
they were dead when they were pulled on shore. 
I did not know whether or not they had already 
died when they left Hiroshima or whether they 
hacj died while being towed by boats too 
crowded with the injured. But I still remem- 
ber that miserable sight of the dead bodies 
with white faces washed in sea water. 



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Sagami Ogawa age 60 (664) 



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Kiyoaki Ueno age 46 (850) 



August 9, 1945, when I was a freshman at the 
Hiroshima Teacher Training School. 

After the A-Bomb dropped I helped in the 
clean-up and reorganization of the Hiroshima 
Teacher Training School in Shinonome Town. 
This is only a sketch of what I saw at the Niho 
Elementary School when I went there on an 
errand. I cannot forget the scene I witnessed. 

Since there was no medicine, one of the 
rescue party was coating a survivor's burn with 



mercurochrome, another coated it with cooking 
oil, and the third person pasted newspaper over 
it. I cannot forget the victim's cries at the time 
the paper was being torn off ! As there were 
a lot of flies, maggots were crawling in the 
wounds. 

The corridor of Niho Elementary School 
was being used for a survivors' rescue station 
even though all the windowpanes were broken. 



79 



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Kimiyo Higaki age 76 {271) 



While fleeing toward Ogawara I stopped 
at the auditorium of Fuchu Elementary School. 
Seeing so many people badly injured and ask- 
ing for help, I could not help crying myself. It 
was terrible to see people with their faces, 
hands, and legs so badly swollen. I also felt 
sick from inhaling noxious gases. The army 
had no medicine except mercurochrome and 
it was, at best, a temporary treatment. Even 
now I am anxious about what happened to 
those people. I also had some mercurochrome 
put on the injury to my face. 



80 



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Fumie Enseki age 56 {572) 






81 



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Yoshimi Hara age 58 (22) 



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After a few days we carried the injured 
people who had been on Kanawa Island to the 
Otake Marine Corps Base. Each motorboat 
pulled five rafts as this picture shows. On 
each raft were one noncommissioned officer, 
three soldiers, fifty injured people, and about 
twenty of their relatives taking care of them. 
We could do nothing for the injured people 
but give them water. A girl spurted blood 
from her artery when her pressure bandage was 
taken off. There was a man whose face looked 
like a broken watermelon whenever he moved 
his mouth. There was just one medical or- 
derly on five of such rafts ! 

We set sail at five in the morning and were 
to arrive at Otake at one in the afternoon. 
Suddenly an enemy plane flew toward us and 
shot at us with machine guns. We could do 
nothing but put biankets over the people. 
During the attack, two of the fifty people were 
killed. One was a man of fifty from Kamino- 
bori-cho who got up, crawled a few feet while 
calling for his wife, and then died. I heard 
later that his wife was taken in another unit 
and died also. The other of the two was a girl 
with her family near her. 



I 



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83 



Satoru Yoshimoto age 44 [353) 




O* 



August 6, 1945 at a hospital in Takasu 

Hundreds of people had come to receive 
some treatment. The doctors were putting 
mercurochrome on the entirely burned bodies 
of these people. 



84 




My burn immediately after the A-Bomb explo- 
sion, August 6, 1945 

At that time medicine was scarce. A large 
number of injured people gathered in a line 
and were treated with cucumbers, cooking oil, 
or mercurochrome. 



i$ilil^i.<fg (#-»-; 



Festering several weeks later 

I scraped the festering skin again and 
again with a knife. Health care : use persimm- 
ons and figs ; no smoking ; no alcohol ; plain 
foods ; take dokudami-grass (a bad-smelling 
weed) ; avoid oily foods. 



My own treatment miraculously cured my 
burn. 

By scraping with a knife, my skin retur- 
ned to its normal condition and hair, about 
six centimeters long, grew out. 



I was hit by the A- Bomb on a street in Misasa 
Town. 






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Shiro Fujimoto age 66 (498-500) 



85 







The morning of August 7, 1945 

I awoke to find my face terribly changed 
as if it was not my face. My whole body 
ached. I suffered from a fever during the 
night. My mother, wife, and the Ishizu family 
in whose house we lived during evacuation, 
kindly took care of me. My face, especially 
my mouth, felt like a rubber ball. My body 
did too. The fever, which robbed me of all 
energy, was more unbearable than the injury. 



After one month in bed I managed to 
walk again and so I rejoined my military unit. 
(As I had not been directly exposed to the 
bomb-flash, my illness was not too serious.) 
Within a week all my comrades' hair turned a 
red-brown color and fell out. They were also 
bleeding from the gums and under the nails. 
Gradually they became emaciated and their 
burns festered all over. It looked like they 
were carrying bags of water on their backs. 
They all soon died. 



I decided to return to Hon-in against the 
advice of my friends. On the way I met Mr. 
Samura, a friend of mine. Without his name 
plate I could not have identified him. He said 
that all his companions were killed during a 
morning assembly. I advised him to go to 
Hesaka Elementary School for medical treat- 
ment. Then we parted. 

Three soldiers who were brought here by 
the ambulance squad yesterday had all died. 
Each of them was swollen like a balloon doll 
and their skins were the color of potatoes. 



Yoshio Takakara age 66 [144, 145, 147) 



86 



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The condition in which I found my 40 year 
old wife on the morning of August 11, 1945. 
She was badly burned and had developed run- 
ning sores. 

I was a soldier and had left for Takamatsu 
in Shikoku by orders of the Army on August 5. 
So I returned home to Ushita in Hiroshima 
City. 

1 . She looked just like a ghost because her 
eyelids were badly burned and swollen. 



Fusataro Tanimine age 77 (900) 

2. Her lips, swollen and protruding, made 
her mouth look like a monkey's. 

3. Although she was under mosquito net- 
ting, the skin of her whole burned body 
on which maggots were breeding had 
the appearance of the crust of a crab. 

She died on September 8, 1945, even 
though I applied oil, seaweed, and tried every 
other means I could think of to save her life. 



I 



87 




Fumiko Yamaoka age 50 (734) 







fen Nakagawa age 64 (540) 



This picture is about the rescue operation 
along the riverbank in Sakaimachi at 8 : 40 
A.M., August 6, 1945. Navy personnel 
started to rescue people in Honkawa, Enoma- 
chi, and Motomachi. There were cries for 
help from women, children, and old people 
pinned under houses or crushed between pil- 
lars. The fire spread so rapidly that 280,000 
people died from burning, asphyxiation, drown- 
ing, and being crushed. 

The dead were sacrificed for their country. 
Children, wives, fathers, and friends never 
came back. I hear phantom voices crying for 
help. I can not forget. 



90 



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Fusako Suma age 44 {34) 



Uchikoshi town's evacuation center 



1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 



9. 
10, 
11. 
12. 

13. 



Smclled bad 

Distributed rice balls 

His face was covered with gauze. 

Carpet made of straw 

Bandage 

Flies caused maggots to form on the 

wounded people. 

His stomach was swollen and filled with 

water. 

A corpse 

A corpse 

Fukushima River 

He died as he was about to drink water. 

A hole The soldiers gathered and 

burned the corpse. 
A dead horse 



I 



91 



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Yoshiko Tokutomi age 66 (243) 



92 



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As my feet hurt after walking on tiles and 
broken glass, I picked up gaiters, rolled 
them into bandages, and wrapped them 
around my feet. 

Her face was full of splinters of glass. 
This nail-puller, which I picked up be- 
neath Tsurumi Bridge when the tide was 
out, was of much use for people like her. 
Mr. Harada, who had been the X-ray 
engineer in the Health Council Center, 
was severely bruised on his chest when 
his house collapsed. 

Such a hair style was in fashion among 
women during the decisive battles of the 
last war. 

A member of the rescue party carrying 
a stretcher. 

She was so badly burned that I couldn't 
see how old she was. The name tag on 
her chest led me to believe she was a 
schoolgirl. 

Two or three months before, the City 
Office bad borrowed the house from the 
Taruyas in Iwabana, Yaga Town and 
equipped it with things for a possible war 
disaster unit. 

Each health nurse was to have a tem- 
porary clinic, but I was the only one who 
was able to work. The hands and feet of 
all the others were injured and they lay 
in the City Office. 

Hiroshima Rescue Station, (on flag) 
Prevent Infection. 

bandages 

gauze 

chloroform 

tincture of iodine 

disinfectant 

mercurochrome 

tincture of oil 

tub 

bucket 



93 



I 
I 




Otoicki Yamamoto age 87 {517) 



The Terror of the A-Bomb : a miserable young 
man who was completely burned. 

My house was located in Funairi Town, 
1.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. There we 
experienced the A-Bomb and were buried 
under the house. My wife and I had a narrow 
escape from death because of space supported 
by a wardrobe. We could not get out for 
twenty or thirty minutes but finally found a 
way through the ruins of the house and crawled 
out. When we got to the road of Funairi 
Town, many wounded people were wandering 
this way and that. Some were carrying the 
wounded on boards to Eba Hospital. The 
chairman of the neighborhood organization 
had a Japanese sword on his back and was 
patrolling all over the district to help victims 
of the A-Bomb. Suddenly, one man who was 
stark naked came up to me and said in a qua- 
vering voice, "Please help me !" He was 
burned and swollen all over from the effects qf 






94 



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the A-Bomb. Since I did not recognize him 
as my neighbor, I asked who he was. He 
answered that he was Mr. Sasaki, the son of 
Mr. Enriosuke Sasaki, who had a lumber 
shop in Funairi Town. That morning he had 
been doing volunteer labor service evacuating 
the houses near the Prefectural Office in Kako 
Town. He had been burned black all over 
and had started back to his home in Funairi. 
He looked miserable — burned sore, and naked 
with only pieces of his gaiters trailing behind as 
he walked. Only the part of his hair covered 
by his soldier's hat was left, as if he was wear- 
ing a bowl. When I touched him, his burned 
skin slipped off. I did not know what to do, 
so I asked a passing driver to take him to Eba 
Hospital. 

Soon afterward, I met the wife of my 
neighbor who had also been injured by the 
A- Bomb. Although her husband and I tried 
to help her she died on the way to Eba Hospital. 



Another neighbor could not walk because her 
legs were wounded and looked like pomegran- 
ates. We had to take her to the hospital by hold- 
ing her under her arms. The hospital room 
was full of wounded people. There I found 
Mr. Sasaki whom I had met that morning. 
His entire body, except for his eyes, was 
covered with bandages. Sometime later I 
met his mother who was very grateful to me for 
having helped her son. But she told me he 
had died just after noon. I was very sorry to 
hear this. 

I left the hospital and went across the 
river near the Hiroshima Commercial High 
School with my neighbors. I walked towards 
Itsukaichi Town where there was a shelter and 
arrived at the Itsukaichi Town Office in the' 
evening. 

Every year, August 6, I remember the time 
of the A-Bomb explosion. I can never forget 
the terror and horror of the Atomic Bomb. 



95 






Seven THE CITY OF THE DEAD 




Akikn Takakum age 51 {340) 



The corpse lying on its back on the road 
had been killed immediately when the A-Bomb 
was dropped. Its hand was lifted to the sky 
and the fingers were burning with blue flames. 
The fingers were shortened to one-third and 
distorted. A dark liquid was running to the 
ground along the hand. This hand must 
have embraced a child before. 



96 



. 



J 








Jnnjiro Watanka age 78 {281) 



August 7, 1945, 10 : 00 A.M. near Tokaichi- 
Town streetcar stop 

The black hair of a woman streetcar 
driver remained straight. How strange ! 



97 




Hamano Matsushita age 73 {268) 










About 11 A.M. August 9 near the Tokiwa 
Bridge of Osuka Town 

A pile of blackened bodies bad been 
gathered from the nearby ruins. They were 
being cremated one after another on the river- 
bed. 



^Army Drill Field at Eba 

It was hell on earth all over the city. I 
don't think I can describe even a ten-thou- 
sandth of the reality by drawing a picture or 
telling a story. I think only those who ex- 
perienced it can understand. 

Black rain was falling. 

The labels on the picture indicate moun- 
tains of corpses and parts of bodies. 
100 



August 6 and 7 

At Onaga Town, former east drill field of 
the army, at the foot of Mt. Futaba. Kokuzen 
Temple. 

Yoshio Hamada age 58 (826) ► 



^ncv 



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® *$r <A? 







HideMko Okazaki age 50 {344) 



About 5 P.M. August 6 near the terminal of the 
Hakushima line 

A uniformed streetcar driver lay dead on 
his stomach. He might have died after leading 
all the passengers to safety. Beyond the driver, 
the conductor lay dead on his back still hold- 
ing his fare bag. A dead young man sitting on 
a cart beside the tracks was looking up towards 
the sky. To the right a fire raged along the 
river bank. To the left was the building of 
the Communications Bureau. 



102 



in f — - C^ T 



I L 1 ' f E. ^_ 




Masato Yamaskita age 52 (171) 



August 9 

With no one to help her, a girl died lean- 
ing on the bank of the Enko River. 



103 




Masato Yamashita age 52 (1 '70) 



August 9 

On the west embankment of a military 
training field was a young boy four or five 
years old. He was burned black, lying on his 
back, with his arms pointing toward heaven. 



104 



Numbers in the brackets indicate the orders received. 



- 



THE PICTURES ABOUT THE ATOMIC BOMB 



-AN APPEAL OF THE CITIZENS 



This book contains 104 pictures of a total of 975 collected 
during two months from June to August 1974 in response to an 
NHK television appeal entitled "Let us Leave for Posterity Pictures 
about the Atomic-Bomb Drawn by Citizens". None of these pic- 
tures was drawn by a professional artist. They were done by old 
people such as those we pass by in the city of Hiroshima and sit 
next to on the bus. Most of them had never drawn a picture since 
their graduation from elementary school. In the pictures the 
personal experiences of the Atomic Bomb are shown. They are 
not merely the records and materials of that day thirty years ago. 
Rather, each picture echoes the heartfelt cry of someone who has 
been enduring sorrow and suffering for thirty years since the day the 
Atomic Bomb was dropped. 

It Started from a Single Picture 

One day in May, 1974 Mr. Iwakichi Kobayashi, an old man 
of 77 wearing geta, visited the NHK studio in Hiroshima. He had 
a single picture with him and said that the T. V. drama "Hatoko 
no Umi," then on the air, reminded him of the Atomic Bomb explo- 
sion. He showed us his picture titled "At about 4 P.M., August 
6, 1945, near Yorozuyo Bridge". In the simply and vividly drawn 
picture were countless numbers of people suffering from burns and 
thirsting for water. There was also a figure of a young lady 
covered with a burned sheet of tin-roofing lying on the river bank. 
Mr. Kobayashi explained that he was at the railway station when 
the Atomic Bomb exploded. He was looking for his only son when 
he witnessed the scene he had drawn. Usually we think of the 
Yorozuyo Bridge as an ordinary bridge we cross and we do not 
pay any attention to it because Hiroshima has many .rivers with 
similar bridges.. So we were awed by the extraordinary power of 
Mr. Kobayashi's picture and by the vividness of his memory even 
after almost thirty years. How different this was from understand- 
ing the Atomic Bomb experience by reading a story. The picture 
appealed directly to our senses. Mr. Kobayashi said to us, "Even 
now I can not erase the scene from my memory. Before my death 
I wanted to draw it and leave it for others." Having heard his 
words we made up our minds to ask the people who experienced the 
Atomic Bomb to draw pictures of what they remembered on that day 



JOS 




which no other people really know. Just as Mr, Kobayashi was 
77 years old we knew that other sufferers of the Atomic Bomb were 
rapidly aging. Even in Hiroshima the number of people who did 
not experience the Atomic Bomb had increased'to almost half the 
population. If the Atomic Bomb experience was not recorded 
soon, it would fade away with this one generation. 

NHK broaclcasted in June, 1974, a local morning program 
titled "A Single Picture" which was based on Mr. Kobayashi's 
drawing. With that program we started an appeal "Let us Leave 
for Posterity Pictures of the Atomic Bomb Drawn by Citizens". 
We could not predict whether the sufferers, especially the old people, 
would draw any pictures as they did not usually draw. 

The Movement Spreads 

As soon as the program ended, pictures were collected one after 
another. It was as if a dam had broken. Half the pictures were 
sent by mail while the other half were brought directly to NHK, some 
by old people who could hardly walk. Some traveled a long way to 
the studio and we hardly had time to receive and thank them prop- 
erly. One said, "I cannot forget this scene." Others showed 
their pictures explaining them feverishly, sometimes in tears. The 
pictures were drawn with all kinds of tools such as pencils, crayons, 
water colors, magic pens, colored pencils, and India ink. The 
people used almost any kind of paper they could find such as draw- 
ing paper, backs of calendars, advertising bills, and paper used for 
covering sliding doors. Some drew the pictures on the backs of 
children's scribbled papers, probably those of their grandchildren. 

Many trained artists have drawn the miserable scene of that 
day. But did you know that so many ordinary people could draw 
pictures like these ? Even in Hiroshima it is said that people are 
apt to forget their experiences of many long years ago. These 
pictures, however, tell us that survivors cannot forget their experi- 
ences. 



106 



m 




We have mentioned on this television program and also on the 
news and in announcements that the pictures about the A-Bomb 
drawn by survivors should be preserved. They were sent not only 
from Hiroshima Prefecture but also from other prefectures. Riding 
his motorcycle through a storm wearing a soaked raincoat, Mr, 
Shiro Fujimoto (p. 85) brought his picture from his home in Fuse 
town, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 70 kilometers away. When we saw 
his picture we were astonished to find how graphically it told us of, 
his experience. 

Haruko Ogasawara (p. 43) and Tomoko Konishi (p. 12) drew 
the actions of that day with a series of pictures showing the times of 
their occurrence. The explanations and the pictures of Hatsuji 
Takeuchi (p. 28) and Ayako Uesugi (p. 35) make it almost possible 
to hear the cries of these suffering people. 

Almost every picture has an explanation, either on the picture 
itself, on the backside of it, or on an attached sheet of paper. 
When the picture does not tell the whole experience, the written 
explanation helps. Using two colors, one of which is used for 
drawing the scene before the explosion, the other for immediately 
after the explosion, the picture on page 24 tells you that the students 
standing in a line in a morning assembly were blown down by the 
blast and the heat rays. Keep in mind when you look at this 
picture that the artist's idea is to make unforgettable his memory of 
the scene. So, imaginative devices not ordinarily employed by 
artists have been used to produce these drawings. 

Nine hundred pictures were collected before July 1974 and 
exhibited in Peace Memorial Museum August 1-6, 29 years after 
the A-Bomb. During that time about 20,000 people saw the pic- 
tures. They were asked to write their impressions in notebooks and 
eighteen were filled. Someone wrote, "We have never seen such 
an exhibition that shows so many crudely done pictures as this. 
But these drawings made a stronger impression on us than anv 
others. ever did." 



107 



The Message the Pictures Wish to Convey 

The Assembly Hall used for the exhibition should have been 
twice the size originally planned for. So many pictures were sent 
in and even during the exhibition many more pictures arrived. A 
number of pictures were drawn at the Assembly Hall. The plann- 
ed space was entirely filled, and later the walls were filled from 
floor to ceiling. 

While we watched people continue to bring in pictures during 
the filming of the television program about the A-Bomb, we won- 
dered why so many pictures were drawn in spite of their crude 
techniques. Then we realized that many explanations on the pic- 
tures ended with the words "gashoo" or "gashoonembutsu" mean- 
ing praying hands or folded hands in prayer for the dead. "I am 
not good at painting. I am very sorry that I couldn't make a pic- 
ture scroll which would really tell you of the experience that I had 
at that time. However, today I drew a picture and wrote an ex- 
planation while in front of a Buddhist altar", Mrs. Kinu Kusata 
explained on her picture. 

The pictures convey what the survivors would like, known that 
in drawing the picture it led them to make amends individually 
for the people who died that day and to relieve the anguish of their 
souls. This was related to the positive wish that others should 
understand the truth of that day. As Mrs. Tsuncyo Masada, age 
75, explained of the many blameless people who wanted water, 
writhed in agony, and died, "I'm an old woman and not good at 
writing and drawing but in spite of that I was struck'with the idea 
of drawing a picture and writing an explanation so that many people 
can understand my experience." Many pictures were drawn by 
people in their sickbeds. Mrs. Katsu Kawano, age 82, drew five 
pictures with her palsied hands. "I drew a picture with my dis- 
abled hands. The scene shows only a part of the misery in my 
mind from the actual experience." When we went to interview 
Mrs. Hamano Matsushita about the explanation of her pictures 
she was seated in her work room and said with great irritation, 
"This picture couid not possibly tell you all my experiences. 
Even if I drew one hundred pictures, they could not tell you of my 
experiences !" As they drew their pictures, the sufferers were im- 
patient and dissatisfied because they could not express their real 
feelings. Drawing reminded them of their painful experiences of 
30 years ago. "My hands are trembling and my heart throbs as 
I think of how I should explain the reality of that situation so that 



108 



you can really understand," said Mrs, Michiyo Azuma, age 68. 
While we collected information from the survivors we were deeply 
impressed by each of their pictures. These pictures cried directly 
to each viewer of the pain and destruction suffered. They did so 
not because of their artistry but because of the emotions expressed. 

Conclusion 

"These pictures are poor in quality if you judge them for artistic 
quality and techniques. We don't want you to see them as exhi- 
bits in a museum. We want to tell you that these things actually 
happened, that people really died in terrible pain." So wrote 59 
year old Mr. Kazuo Kambara. 

During the short time in which these pictures were drawn the 
spread of nuclear weapons has accelerated. Nuclear tests have been 
made in many countries of the world including India, which re- 
cently conducted its first nuclear test. But through the pictures of 
the A-Bomb sufferers, outsiders can be opened to the long closed 
world of the first victims of nuclear war and learn that these pictures 
condemn the folly of nations blindly pursuing a nuclear arms race. 
These pictures should not be ignored. They will be valuable only 
when widely shown to people who do not fully understand the 
Atomic Bomb. We hope that you will grasp the heartfelt cries of 
every picture for they are truly the starting point of an appeal for 
peace. 

. We started to receive pictures again beginning this April, 
1975. We received 300 more pictures by the end of May and 
while we were preparing this book many more pictures were being 
drawn. Mr. Yoshio Hamada (p. 101) sent us five pictures this year 
although he is still bedridden. Mrs. Haruko Ogasawara (p. 43) 
also sent us some pictures. She wrote, "Some of the A-Bomb suf- 
ferers are still ill from radiation sickness. I drew pictures again this 
year because I want to keep handing down that horrible scene of 
the A-Bombed city which will remain in my memory as long as I 
live." 

For one year, starting with the picture drawn by Mr. Iwakichi 
Kobayashi we have continued collecting data for our television 
program. We have been encouraged by the many pictures sent 
to us and are very sorry that we cannot show you all of them. We 
too want to pray for the great number of people who died on that 
day. We express our deep appreciation to those who drew pictures 
and encouraged us. 



109 







Ujina Port 



INDEX 



Akiyama, Kazuo 
Enseki, Fumie 
Fujimoto, Jinichi 
Fujimoto, Shiro 
Fukui, Iwao 
Hamada, Yoshio 
Hara, Yoshimi 
Harada, Tomoe 
Higaki, Kimiyo 
Hironaka, Torako 
Ichida, Yuji 
Ikeda, Yoshimi 
Inoue, Kiyoshi 
Inoue, Mikio 
Inoue, Tadao 
Ishii, Rei 
Ishizu, Kazuhiro 
Ito, Karachi 
Jitsukuni, Magoichi 
Kajiya, Suemi 
Kajiyama, Shigcmatsu 

died in 
Katagiri, Sawami 
Kawakami, Kizo 
Kimura, Sadako 
Kiyoyoshi, Goro 
Kobayashi, Jwakichi 
Kobayashi, Masao 
Konishi, Tomoko 
Kusata, Kinu 
Masukawa, Kishie 

died in 
Matsuinuro, Kazuo 

died in 
Matsushita, Hamano 
Michitsuji, Yoshiko 
Mitsuta, Yoshitada 
Motooka, Shigcko 



age 


F 


age 


66 




69 


56 




81 


47 




63 


66 




85 


61 


76, 


77 


58 




101 


58 


82, 


83 


52 


21, 


33 


76 


36, 37, 


80 


63 


26, 


27 


64 


72, 


73 


51 




34 


51 


15, 


16 


72 




46 


67 


63, 


74 


48 




38 


68 


47, 


66 


72 




28 


69 




30 


69 




51 


1974 




50 


76 




39 


71 




57 


77 




71 


80 




11 


80 


106, 


107 


77 




40 


58 


12, 


13 


73 




65 



1975 



32 



1977 


42, 


70 


73 


98, 


99 


51 




29 


73 




58 


64 


60, 


61 



name 
Motoyama, Unpin 
Nagara, Kishiro 
Nakagawa, Ken 
Nishida, Kinzo 
Nishida,' Terumi 
Nishioki, Kiyoko 
Niwa, Hisashi 
Ogasawara, Haruko 
Ogawa, Sagami 
Ojifi, Tsutomu 
Okazaki, Hidehiko 
Sakai, Takehiko 
Segawa, Kikuno 
Shigemori, Asa 
Shindo, Hiroshi 
Suma, Fusako 
Takahara, Yoshio 
Takakura, Akiko 
Takeuchi, Hatsuji 
Tamaru, Yoshiaki 
Tanimine, Fusataro 
Tokutomi, Yoshiko 
Tomita, Atsuko 
Ueno, Kiyoaki 
Uesugi, Ayako 
Unc, Masato 
Yamada, Sumako 
Yamagata, Yasuko 
Yamamoto, OLoichi 
Yamamoto, Sctsuko 
Yamamura, Masako 
Yamaoka, Fumiko 
Yamashita, Masato 
Yoshimotp, Satoru 
Watanabe, Jun 
Wataoka, Junjiro 
Name withheld by r 
Name unknown 



age page 

76 59 
72 40, 41 

64 90 
82 48 

65 49 
39 55 
93 64 
45 43, 44, 45 
60 78 
36 14 

50 19, 102 

53 20 
69 75 
81 41 

65 56 

44 91 

66 86 

51 96 
60 28 
66 18 

77 87 

66 92, 93 

45 31 

46 79 

77 35 
80 68 

54 17, 56 

49 52, 53 
87 94, 95 
46 22, 23 

67 30 

50 88, 89 

52 103, 104 
44 ■ 84 
48 100 

78 97 
equcst 24, 25 

54, 62, 67 
(in alphabetical order) 



History/Politics 



$795 



The "unforgettable fire" came to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The actual atomic 
bomb was a minuscule weapon by today's standards of destructive power. Nonethe- 
less, vast sections of Hiroshima were leveled instantly, and approximately 240,000 
people were casualties. 

Thirty years later, those who survived still live with the memory of that moment 
painfully etched in their minds. Some still hear "phantom voices crying for help." 
Others cannot erase a single, painful image: a dying boy calling out for water or a 
spouse or child left pinned in a flaming house. 

Now, through a project of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, these survivors 
have been given the chance to share their memories. The result is an extraordinary 
and unforgettable document. In over one hundred vivid color drawings (all the more 
powerful for the fact that none were made by professional artists) and brief, often 
wrenching accompanying descriptions, the Hiroshima experience is invoked. Noth- 
ing could bring home more simply or more personally the fatal human consequences 
of the present escalating arms race. This book is required reading in the nuclear age. 

The art in this book was a response to a request broadcast on a morning television 
program in Japan for drawings from atomic bomb survivors, The results were imme- 
diate. The television station was inundated with drawings. So powerful were the 
survivors' desires to share their memories that they turned to whatever materials 
were at hand-pencils, crayons, watercolors, Magic Markers, colored pencils, India 
ink-and drew on the backs of calendars, advertisements, bills, or even the paper, 
used to cover Japanese sliding doors. Some drew on the backs of children's scribbled 
papers, probably those of their grandchildren. 



Also available in a Pantheon hardcover edition 





Cover illustration by Goro Kiyoyoshi 






Cover design by Louise Fill 




' 


Pantheon Books, New York 




. 


3/81 Printed in the U.S.A. © 1981 Random House, Inc. 


0-394-74823-9 

j